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Migrating Bodies, Migrating Texts
ENG 127 B
Mon/Wed 3:30-4:50
Instructor: Prof Faith Smith
Office: 217 Mandel
Office hours: Mondays 10-2, and by appointment
This course fulfills the following: university Humanities requirement; African and Afro-American Studies elective; Multicultural Literature/World Anglophone English requirement; Latin American and Latino Studies elective.
The genocide of indigenous populations thrust the Caribbean into cycles of journeys into, out of, and within the region – journeys that have never ceased. These movements are important to theorizations of immigration and globalization, terrorism, xenophobia, and homophobia. How do migrants' dreams differ from their children's? (When) does the migrant cease to feel transient? If the migrant’s condition is characterized by movement, what is the characteristic condition of those who no longer travel, or who have never travelled: stasis, frenzy, stillness? Sometimes the Middle Passage and kala pani are invoked in the texts we will read together as images of crossing, birth, inheritance, nightmare. Is the past a burden or a consolation, and what is its relationship to notions of futurity? How do texts travel? When is narrative, or even language itself, inadequate to the task of reparation and reconciliation? These texts are sometimes quite violent: how do they reveal our inclination to register some processes as violent and not others? We will cross borders here – particular that which separates Haiti and the Dominican Republic: when and how do we know that we have crossed a border? The fiction and theoretical essays that we will read together will give you the tools to analyze literary strategies, and to critique and utilize theories of diaspora, globalization, and migration. You will practice writing with force and imagination. I look forward to discussing these readings with you.
Please purchase the following eight books; you should have the physical book with you in class on the day it is assigned.
Jacques Roumain, Masters of the Dew trans. by Langston Hughes Heinemann 1978
Julia Alvarez, In the Time of the Butterflies 1994 978-1565129764
Edwidge Danticat Dew Breaker 978-1400034291 New York : Vintage Books 2005
Ramabai Espinet Swinging Bridge Toronto: HarperPerennialCanada 2003
Gaiutra Bahadur, Coolie Woman 2014 University of Chicago Press 2014
Zadie Smith White Teeth 978-0375703867 New York : Random House 2000
Roxane Gay, An Untamed State 978-0802122513 Grove Press, Black Cat (May 6, 2014)
Junot Diaz The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao 978-1594483295 Riverhead Books 2007
A schedule of readings is below -- please keep checking the LATTE site for additional articles. You should have all readings with you in class.
Complete all work to pass the course.
If you are a graduate student please see me about additional readings, assignments, and meetings.
Our discussions in class are at the heart of the course, and thus you will be expected to prepare the assigned readings carefully beforehand, and to be ready to participate fully in the classroom. I encourage you to print out your LATTE readings (and to scrawl all over them with your notes!), just as I want you to take handwritten notes in all classes. Consult LATTE frequently for assigned readings, for instructions on writing assignments and oral presentations, for changes to the syllabus, and to post required comments on the assigned readings. Unfortunately, your peers in previous classes have forced me to institute tedious policies regarding the use of cell phones, tablets, and other electronic devices. Constant movement in and out of the room undermines the intellectual community we are trying to create, as does the frequent checking of devices. Unless specifically required for the readings from LATTE or for note-taking, you should make sure that all devices are switched off. Please let me know if you are using an electronic device for readings in class. Using devices for reasons other than class participation is disruptive and disrespectful, and it will affect your attendance grade for that day.
All late papers will be docked a letter grade every day for the first two days. If you consult with me no less than 24 hours before a paper is due you can turn in the paper after the due date (it will still receive the late penalty), but I will not accept it beyond two weeks after the original due date.
You should attend both sessions every week: we are creating a community in which we listen carefully to each other's ideas and make connections across the semester's readings. Three or more unexcused absences will affect your grade significantly, and I will ask you to consider dropping the course. Please tell me at the beginning of the semester about religious or athletic exemptions. You should show me documentation from athletic or medical personnel when you are absent for those reasons.
If you have questions about documenting a disability or requesting academic accommodations, you should contact Beth Rodgers-Kay in Academic Services (x6-3470 or .) Letters of accommodation should be presented at the start of the semester to ensure provision of accommodations: they cannot be granted retroactively.
Plagiarism is a serious offence and will be penalized: http://lts.brandeis.edu/courses/instruction/academic-integrity/index.html. If you are unsure about how to acknowledge others’ ideas, please see me, but in general, when you are unsure, you should cite your source!
Assignments (elaborated on LATTE in the "Writing Assignnment" section):
-- participation (attendance; thoughtful participation; readings with you in class) 20%
-- two LATTE posts to guide our discussion of a reading 10%
-- 4-5-page close reading of a passage from a novel 20%
-- 4-5 page paper connecting a theoretical concept to a fictional
text or film's scene; 20%
-- 8-10-page paper including an extended discussion of two novels
not discussed in your previous papers 30%
SCHEDULE:
Wed Sep 3: Introduction
Derek Walcott, “Ruins of a Great House”;
Saidiya Hartman, "In the Dungeon"
Mon Sep 8: Ana Lydia Vega, “Encancaranublado”
Aime Césaire, Notebook of a Return to the Native Land, selection
Olive Senior, "All Clear, 1928"
Begin Roumain, Masters of the Dew 23-118 (chaps 1-9)
Wed Sep 10: Roumain, Masters of the Dew 119-188 (chap 10 to the end)
Mon Sep 15: Alvarez, In the Time of the Butterflies 1994 3-117 (to end of chap 6)
Wed Sep 17: Alvarez, In the Time of the Butterflies 1994 (118-226 (chaps 7-10)
Mon Sep 22: Alvarez, In the Time of the Butterflies 1994 (227-332)
Edwidge Danticat, “Nineteen Thirty-seven”
Rita Dove, “Parsley”
Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, selection
Wed Sep 24: Danticat, Dew Breaker 3-138
Mon Sep 29: Dew Breaker 139 to the end
Tuesday, September 30 by noon: 4-5-page close reading due: see LATTE for details
Wed Oct 1: Espinet, Swinging Bridge 1-114 (to end of Part 1)
Mon Oct 6: Swinging Bridge 117-243 (Part 2)
Wed Oct 8: Swinging Bridge 247-306;
Bahadur, Coolie Woman (xix-101; Preface to chap 6)
Mon October 13: Brandeis Thursday: No Class
Wed Oct 15: Coolie Woman 103-214
Mon Oct 20: Sara Ahmed, from The Promise of Happiness;
watch Bend It Like Beckham on your own in preparation for class today
Tuesday October 21: Annual Eleanor Roosevelt Lecture at 3:30 pm: Professor David Lisak will speak about sexual violence on college campuses. Please try to attend this lecture.
Wed Oct 22: Zadie Smith White Teeth 1-102 (first 5 chaps)
Mon Oct 27: White Teeth 105-217 (to end of chap 10)
Wed Oct 29: White Teeth 221-339
Mon Nov 3: J.-K.Huysmans, Marthe: The Story of a Whore (1876);
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Mask, selection;
Claude McKay, “The Night-Woman to the Bobby”
Wed Nov 5: White Teeth 341-448
Mon Nov 10: Svetlana Boym, “On Diasporic Intimacy: Ilya Kabadov’s Installaions and Immigrant Homes,”
Wed Nov 12: in-class screening of 35 Rhums. Dir. Claire Denis
Read in preparation for today selections from: Stuart Hall, “The Formation of a Diasporic Intellectual: An Interview with Stuart Hall”; Tyler Stovall, “From Red Belt to Black Belt: Race, Class and Urban Marginality in Twentieth-Century France”; Joan Wallach Scott, The Politics of the Veil.
Friday, November 14 by noon: 4-5-page paper on a theoretical concept; instructions on LATTE
Mon Nov 17: Roxane Gay, "The Careless Language of Sexual Violence" from Bad Feminist, and excerpts from Ayiti; Begin An Untamed State (up to page 113)
Wed Nov 19: An Untamed State 114-245
Mon Nov 24: An Untamed State 246-367
Wed Nov 26: No Class: Thanksgiving holiday
Mon Dec 1: Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao beginning (incl. both epigraphs) to 94
Wed Dec 3: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao 95-235
Mon Dec 8: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao 235-335
Wednesday, Dec 10: 8-10-page paper due